


brush strokes of love

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Soulmarks, Team as Family, This is super sappy and pointless, alternating pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29443128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Tony Stark is a flashy asshole, but he’s got layers of love written into his skin
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 137
Collections: Lights on Park Ave





	brush strokes of love

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!! I fell in love with a prompt from @lightsonparkave and this happened. <3

When you meet Steve Rogers, the thing you notice is he is beautiful, gold and blue and shining. 

The thing you notice next is his skin is color free and heartbreaking. 

~*~ 

Bucky touched him most. 

He wrapped an arm around his shoulders, a hand hooked over one bony shoulder, years of touch that laid butter gold in endless layers into his skin. 

There were other touches. Other people’s colors on his skin--Mama Barnes, and his own mother, the Howlies, and Peggy. There were bruise bright colors on his skin from fights and the rough dark marks from strangers that slammed into him on the streets, and they all faded, because marks  _ fade _ , vanish into the skin.

Bucky’s never did. Bucky’s touch was a brand of butter yellow that tethered him and reminded him of a era he’d lost. 

He touches them sometimes, the gold where Bucky’s fingers brushed and wondered if they’d ever fade. 

~*~ 

You wear blue on your skin, gingham blue from Jarvis and his gentle hands, and cut grass green from Rhodey, and sometimes, dusty pink, like the old perfume bottles that rattled around Aunt Peggy’s bathroom, a fleeting gift from Pepper. 

You wear blue and green and pink and you don’t think about the thousand colors--red and vermillion and garnet and opal and hyacinth--that layer into your skin and fade almost as soon as they brush against you. 

You wear blue and green and pink and Happy’s dour grey colors Pepper’s cheek and wrist and throat, a thousand brush strokes of love, and you wonder what it’d be like, to have your skin painted like that. 

~*~ 

Tony Stark is a flashy asshole, but he’s got layers of love written into his skin and Steve sees that color deepen when Colonel Rhodes scoops him up outside the shawarma shop, the team standing around them both, curious and amused. 

Natasha’s skin is a bland slate and Clint’s is layered in the palest lavender and robin egg blue. Bruce has smears of green on his skin, like the Hulk is wrapped around him and a burst of coral pink, fading around his wrist. 

Tony Stark is layered in gingham blue and cut grass green and he’s bare handed as he hugs his friend, smears oil slick rainbows into Rhodes’ skin. 

He watches and misses Bucky with a fierceness that makes him sick. 

~*~

Steve leaves and Pepper leaves and the Avengers trickle into the tower, one by one. Natasha eyes you and your gloves, but she never says anything, just kisses your cheek and leaves a robin egg blue print in her wake and you think--this is how life will be now. 

And then Steve comes back, his skin bare and eyes desolate and you hurt for him, haunting the tower with his ghosts and nightmares. You bring him to the workshop and don’t melt when he coos over DUM-E, build him a gym and don’t get hard over watching him box, drag him into the city and can’t look away from the city lights glittering in his eyes. 

It’s his bare skin and his sad smiles and those eyes, bright bright blue, and you wonder, because he’s never touched the team, that you’ve seen, what color he’d leave on your skin. 

~*~

Stark wears gloves. Not the thick leather ones he  _ should _ wear in the workshop, but dainty lace things a married lady might have worn, when Steve was growing up. They’re dainty and lovely, emphasizing his long artistic fingers and the delicate curve of his wrist. 

Tony--Tony doesn’t bother with gloves, not when they’re locked away in the Tower, where Natasha leaves smears of robin egg blue and Clint’s black sky claps onto his shoulder over butter gold, not where shy hints of green brush, fingertip soft, against his skin. 

Tony doesn’t wear gloves but he doesn’t  _ touch _ them either, not enough to leave oil slick spills behind and Steve realizes, abruptly, that he  _ aches _ for that touch. 

~*~ 

They fight and you watch, your heart in your throat. The Winter Soldier fights like a feral animal, trapped and devastating, and you watch those touches bloom, lighting strike blue against Steve’s skin and you can’t do anything to wipe them away. 

You watch as that mask falls away and Steve stares in blank horror and you think maybe you’ve lost him, before you ever had a chance to begin. 

~*~

He goes home. 

Lighting strike blue is still written into his skin, lasting and deep where the bruises have faded, and the Potomac is still smoldering, but he goes home, and he finds Tony asleep in his bed, worry dark bruises under his eyes. 

“Tony,” Steve murmurs, and brushes a finger against Tony’s cheek, watch faded charcoal smear across his skin and his heartbeat trips and trembles and soars. 

~*~ 

It doesn’t fade. You wait, while Steve is in Senate hearings and while he chases Barnes, and it doesn’t fade, just sits there, a charcoal smudge on your cheek. 

He comes home, brings a wounded assassin and a mouthy therapist and you watch him, the way his skin blooms with color--black sky and robin egg blue and smudges of green, lightening strike blue and violent red clay. You can remember when his skin was blank and empty, butter gold claim over his shoulders the only evidence that he wasn’t alone in the world, that he’d ever been loved, and now it’s there, layers of love painted onto his skin and you want your own colors there. 

~*~ 

Tony leans into his touch, now, eager and almost greedy for it, eyes eyes dark and delighted when charcoal smudges smeared his his wake, and Steve let himself  _ touch.  _ The smear of it on his elbow, when Steve handed him coffee or food or tugged him out of the workshop. 

The burst of it on his biceps, where Steve gripped too tight and shook with fear after a mission gone wrong. The scruff of it on his neck, where he rubbed when Tony whimpered through a headache and the brush of it against his forehead, when Steve checked him for a temperature. 

~*~ 

You kiss him, when his touch has layered over Jarvis and even Rhodey, when his charcoal smears are distracting and claiming and impossible to deny, when your skin is layered in his touch, in his love, and you can’t deny any longer that you want  _ more.  _

You kiss him until he’s licking into your mouth and smearing charcoal stains on your hips and your lips are tingling, your lungs burning for oxygen and you smile at him, at the oil slick spill across his pouting lips. 

You crawl down his body and paint your love into his skin with each press of your lips, until he’s straining and desperate and leaking against your tongue, and covered in shimmering rainbows. 

  
  



End file.
